AmeriCymru: Welsh-American Social Network & Language Learners' Group

An American Welsh Social Network - Rhwydwaith Cymdeithasol i Gymry America. "AmeriCymru.com and Americymru.ning.com are an online social network for Welsh people and people of Welsh descent and a place online to find Wales and all things Welsh." Neither Welsh nor as far as I know of descent, I still liked this contingent, so I joined their friendly fray.

Since I needed to seek out those in the know, I thought this'd be a sensible place for my diasporic speculation about a language studied by me in isolation. Not needing to speak it really, I'm intrigued by seeing it. I asked my quixotic or misguided question about ties between Gaeilge & Cymraeg. Perhaps (despite "Bo's" erudite pair of rejoinders), I may find another deluded seeker scrabbling out a few pan-Celtic traces, however dim or palimpsestic fifteen hundred years hence.

I found AmeriCymru when tapping in a search for reviews of the pricy, enigmatic, but flashy and hypermarketed (for lack of alternatives for such as Tagalog and Farsi?) Rosetta Stone software for Irish and Welsh. You cannot even get it used; the company determines you purchase the license, not the product! Contradicting the right we have as buyers of a product to dispose of it as we wish! Seems discouraging. Not that I can afford it, but I am curious, yellow.

There's spirited, if combative and diffused, discussions by real RS Irish users at forums on Daltaí na Gaeilge, as opposed to ubiquitous blurbs, but I had trouble uncovering any for RS Welsh. Then, I substituted "Cymraeg," as even the yellow RS software box has that label. I figured I'd get more serious cross-over potential. And, up popped somebody's comments. That listing led me to wander around the rest of AmeriCymru. The learners gather at: Grŵp Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Group)

This AmeriCymru-hosted (its sequestered guests can be hard to track down on the main site) Grŵp links to: Learn Welsh Podcast. I referred to this on January 8th. Thanks to all on the Net, who as I ranted to my MBA-aspiring son today, eschew commercial gain as they enter the web to promote the joy of knowledge rather than the accumulation of profit by garishly "sponsored" blogs and busily hectoring, Flash-animated, ad-riddled URLs.